I wanted to make a few observations about the editors’ of the Wall Street Journal’s remarks about the Affordable Care Act today. Here’s the meat of the editorial:

Take a recent social-media post from Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. If Republicans don’t extend the turbocharged subsidies, she warned, “early retirees like Bill & Shelly will see their health insurance premiums increase nearly 300%—from $442 to $1,700.”

Wait. Early retirees? This is a tacit admission that ObamaCare encourages Americans to stop working. The Biden subsidies turbocharged that incentive by making subsidies larger and available even to those with incomes above 400% of the poverty line. The couple in Ms. Klobuchar’s example had north of $130,000 of income in 2024, mostly from pensions, according to the media article.

Do taxpayers—many of whom pay for their own coverage at work—want to underwrite baby boomer early retirement? Maybe the politics here aren’t as obvious as Democrats assume.

More fundamentally, Democratic howling about premiums is an indictment of the system their party built. The Paragon Institute offers a helpful chart showing that expiring pandemic subsidies are responsible for about 3% of total 2026 premiums. “The real drivers are the same structural flaws that have plagued ObamaCare since 2014 and rising health care costs,” Paragon notes. The debate isn’t whether premiums are going up, only how much the taxpayer should pay.

Republicans are right to refuse to extend these subsidies—which none of them voted for—as the price of reopening the government. May they all stick to it, especially the wild card who lives in the White House. But the GOP also has an opening to start building lifeboats from ObamaCare.

Table stakes for any ObamaCare negotiation should include codifying association health plans that let small businesses join up to form a larger risk pool to improve the economics of offering insurance. Ditto for continuing to expand plans that can be paired with tax-preferred health-savings accounts.

Republicans could also try to fix some ObamaCare regulations like the medical-loss ratio that obliges insurers to spend 80% of premiums on claims, which in practice is a profit cap that has driven industry consolidation. The GOP goal should be to move as many Americans as possible into better coverage.

Maybe the title of this post should have been “It’s the Incentives, Stupid”. I’m not a fan of the ACA but for almost the opposite reasons the editors dislike it.

The core problem with our healthcare system is that no one has any incentives to control costs and, consequently, the costs continue to increase to and beyond affordability. That didn’t start with the ACA. It was built into the original structure of Medicare.

Since by and large healthcare insurance companies bear no actual risks and just take a percentage of billing to do the administration for the companies that are their customers they have no incentive to control costs.

Since employees, i.e. patients don’t realize how much of their total compensation is in the form of healthcare insurance, so little of the actual billing is out-of-pocket, and they get pretty much any are they want, they have no incentives to control costs.

Since those who obtain their healthcare insurance through the ACA are receiving enormous subsidies even when they earn four times the median, i.e. they are in the top 5% of income earners, they have no incentive to control costs.

Medicare beneficiaries don’t have much skin in the game, either, cf. above.

Since healthcare providers raise their rates to capture any subsidies (as I pointed out in a post some time ago), they have no incentive to control costs.

Since companies are saving money by self-insuring their incentives to control costs aren’t worth the grief they would get if they did control costs.

So costs keep rising.

I stated my preference decades ago. The short version is that everyone’s incentives should be aligned to provide the most health at the least cost (rather than the most care as is presently the case). Until that happens no tweaking around the edges will fix our broken system.

I’m surprised this story hasn’t received more attention. Over the weekend a Navy helicopter and jet crashed in the South China Sea. Crews were safe. From Seth Robson at Stars and Stripes:

All five crew members survived separate crashes Sunday of a Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter and an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter in the South China Sea, according to the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Both aircraft were operating from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, according to the fleet. “At approximately 2:45 p.m. local time, a U.S. Navy MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter, assigned to the ‘Battle Cats’ of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 73 went down in the waters of the South China Sea while conducting routine operations from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz,” the fleet posted Monday on X. “Search and rescue assets assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11 safely recovered all three crew members. “

The losses have been blamed by some on defects in the fuel which seems far-fetched to me. Lately I’ve been seeing some speculations about Chinese electronic interference.

I recognize that military activity is a risky, chancy business but losing two aircraft over a weekend seems, well, unusual to me. At the very least it’s a lost of $100 million dollars. Whatever the cause I would think it worthy of more thought than the incidents seem to be receiving.

What happened?

I have seen a number of opinion pieces today predicting that Vice President Harris will be the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2028. IMO that’s one of the worst suggestions I have read in a long time. The vice president is, perhaps, the most inept campaigner we’ve seen in a presidential campaign in my lifetime. It would, however, give her the opportunity to prove she has been correct in her contention that she just didn’t have enough time (she had plenty of time).

I chalk this up as an instance of what Sigmund Freud called “the death wish”. I can think of no stronger evidence that the Democratic leadership actually wants to cede the White House to the Republicans. Please, please, VP Harris, remove your name from contention. I don’t believe she will. The presidency is a disease which, once you have contracted it, seems to be incurable.

Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino appeared before a federal judge in Chicago today to report on immigration enforcement operations in Chicago. From WGN Christine Fernando, Erik Runge, Michael Johnson, and Ben Bradley report:

CHICAGO (AP/WGN) — Seated in a packed courtroom Tuesday and wearing a green Border Patrol street uniform, Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino was at Dirksen Federal Building taking questions about the immigration enforcement operation in the Chicago area, which has produced more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force.

Tuesday’s hearing comes after U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis earlier this month ordered uniformed immigration agents to wear body cameras, the latest step in a lawsuit by news outlets and protesters who say federal agents have used excessive force, including the use of tear gas, during protests against immigration operations in the Chicago area, called Operation Midway Blitz by the Trump administration.

The most telling section of the piece comes later when Judge Ellis orders Mr. Bovino to wear a body camera and appear before her on a daily basis:

On Tuesday, Ellis asked Bovino directly if he has a body-worn camera.

“I have not yet received a body-worn camera, nor the training,” Bovino answered.

The judge then told Bovino to get one by Friday.

“The camera is your friend,” Ellis said. “If someone is throwing a rock at your head, the camera will catch it.”

The judge ordered Border Patrol to turn over use-of-force reports and video from Sept. 2 through Saturday, Oct. 25, by the end of the week, and all future videos and reports within 24 hours of being finalized.

Ellis then ordered Bovino to show up in person every weekday at 6 p.m. to tell her about the day’s activities. She’s also requiring by Friday lists of all people arrested for non-immigration-related offenses, along with reports and video supporting the arrests.

I agree with those directions but I also acknowledge that there’s a narrow line between appropriate judicial oversight and actually impeding enforcement. We’ll see how this works out.

I also think that Congress needs to appropriate funds for body cameras for all Border Patrol officers along with directions for their use. Assuming, that is, that Congress comes back into session.

Furthermore, I wonder whether the Sun-Times will apologize to Mr. Bovino for suggesting that he would not appear.

I want to commend Yascha Mounk’s most recent Substack to your attention. In it he interviews Dan Wang and they contract the United States as a lawyers’ state with China as engineeers’ state. As just one example consider this. Since 1980 every Democratic Party presidential candidate has been a lawyer. Over the same period every Chinese president has been an engineer.

Here’s another thing to consider. Are the problems that have so greatly delayed and increased the cost of the high-speed rail system in California engineering problems or legal problems?

I don’t agree with everything that both of them say in the piece. Their view of U. S. manufacturing is very much from 50,000 feet. The only thing I have to contribute is that what is happening in the U. S. is very much what I have predicted and said for more than two decades. Production engineering necessarily follows production. Ultimately, design engineering follows production engineering. I also think that Mr. Wang is presenting an overly rosy view of China. Although the percent has declined sharply over the last couple of decades according to the world Bank 22% of China’s workers are farmers. I believe that China and, particularly, the Chinese Communist Party have a large number of engineers. But China is still not a country of engineers. It’s a country that has been run by Soviet-style engineers for several decades.

Read the whole thing (or at least as much as you can).

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem presents her defense of federal agents’ actions in enforcing immigration law, particularly in Portland and Chicago. Here’s her list of particulars:

Our officers have been shot at and assaulted. They have faced death threats, doxxing and confrontations at their homes. Spotter networks in Chicago linked to street gangs and Mexican cartels track the movements of officers for Customs and Border Protection as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, relaying locations and enabling ambushes during routine enforcement operations.

This month a member of the Latin Kings gang was charged with putting a bounty on the life of Border Patrol Commander at Large Gregory Bovino. The illegal alien charged with placing that bounty was arrested, has pleaded not guilty, and will face justice. The incident shows the enormous risk law-enforcement officers face to make our cities safe again.

A self-styled anarchist website in Portland, Ore., encouraged supporters to use high-powered laser pointers to bring down federal helicopters in the area.

In Dallas an anti-ICE terrorist opened fire on an ICE facility intending to kill officers. Instead, he killed two detainees. In Alvarado, Texas, Antifa terrorists ambushed ICE officers at a detention facility, wounding a local police officer in the neck.

I think the law should be enforced but it should be enforced lawfully and scrupulously. I’m not convinced that is the case. Perhaps, as details come out in the upcoming court case more facts will be presented.

I have no idea whether the charges she levies are correct or not. There is pretty good documentation of the last incident she mentions, the murder of two illegal immigrants in Dallas.

I’ve been critical of Illinois’s governor and Chicago’s mayor because I think that they don’t believe that the law should be enforced and their statements have the effect of stoking discontent.

Le Parisien reports that French authorities have apprehended two individuals suspected of stealing the Napoleonic crown jewels from the Louvre:

Sous le feu des projecteurs internationaux, l’enquête judiciaire sur le casse du siècle au Louvre s’accélère. Selon nos informations, deux suspects ont été interpellés ce samedi soir et placés en garde à vue dans le cadre des investigations ouvertes pour « vol en bande organisée » et « association de malfaiteurs en vue de la commission d’un crime », pilotées par la brigade de répression du banditisme de Paris (BRB) et l’Office central de lutte contre le trafic des biens culturels (OCBC).

Translated:

Under the glare of international attention, the judicial investigation into the “heist of the century” at the Louvre is speeding up. According to our information, two suspects were arrested Saturday evening and placed in police custody as part of an investigation opened for “theft by an organized gang” and “criminal conspiracy with intent to commit a crime,” led by the Paris anti-gang brigade (BRB) and the Central Office for the Fight Against Trafficking in Cultural Property (OCBC).

They further report that the two apprehended lived in Seine-Saint-Denis. That’s one of the largest suburbs in metropolitan Paris. Two-thirds of those living there are “immigrants” in the French sense, mostly from North Africa. That means non-French citizens, likely in France illegally.

Given the political situation in France at present

if immigrants are determined to be responsible for robbing the Louvre, that will provide additional fuel for the anti-immigrant Rassemblement National (National Rally) and its allies.

Here are some examples. Today I used ChatGPT to use a font in one of my blog posts different from the default font. I asked the question, asked a few more questions to refine what my intention was, copied the code, and edited my post.

Yesterday I devoted a considerable amount of time to creating a complete storyboard for a hypothetical movie. I was very satisfied with the results. Maybe I’ll go ahead and create the movie itself (using a different AI tool) or maybe I won’t.

I don’t read for pleasure as much as I used to. Once upon a time I read a book every day. Nowadays it’s too fatiguing especially considering how much else I read (for work—when I was working, news reports, editorials, opinion pieces, etc.).

Not long ago at my wife’s urging I read Dark City Dames: The Women Who Defined Film Noir. She’s very much into reading celebrity biographies. Over the last couple of months she’s read biographies and/or autobiographies of Mary Astor, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Kay Francis, Gloria Swanson, Myrna Loy, and Louise Brooks). Talk about degrees of separation! I’ve never met any of those people but I was acquainted with people who did. Three degrees, sometimes two.

The book consists of three sections. The first consists of brief bios of Jane Greer, Audrey Totter, Marie Windsor and actresses who created the great characters of film noir from 1945 to 1955 drawn from interviews with them over a number of years, sixteen in all. The second consists of updates on their later lives. The final section is some observations from Mr. Muller.

In case you’re not familiar with him Eddie Muller is one of the hosts on Turner Classic Movies. He’s a very insightful guy, much more insightful than you might gather from his remarks on TCM. I learned things of which I had been unaware not just about the actresses he interviewed but about Hollywood and current events in 1945-1955.

Highly recommended.